He arranged all five on the workbench in the barn and looked at them.
Five creatures, each the size of something you could hold in two hands, each looking like something you might find at a market if the market sold the sort of things he had spent all morning building. The golden retriever puppy. The black labrador puppy. The golden kitten. The tiny white fox with silver-tipped tails. The grey and white cat with the blue eyes.
Five creatures with rock troll bones and a hundred spells each and a teleport failsafe and seeds of identity that would grow into genuine selves over months and years. The most formidably equipped animals in the county, possibly in the country, wearing the forms of the kind of pets that people brought home from markets and thought were simply nice to have around.
Shadow was in the corner of the barn, watching this with the ember-eyes at half-lid, and Arthur through their connection received something that was the shadow-familiar equivalent of: well done.
'Thank you,' Arthur said.
He picked up all five — two in each hand and the fox draped across one wrist — and went to find his family.
◆ ◆ ◆
He found them in the yard, which was convenient.
His mother was hanging laundry. Clara was sitting on the fence with her legs dangling, not helping with the laundry but providing commentary on the laundry, which was arguably a service. Lyra was in the garden with her sleeves rolled up. His father and Thomas were at the far edge of the east field, visible at distance, doing something to the fence line.
'What are those,' Clara said, from the fence, before he had fully arrived in the yard.
'Come down,' he said. 'I'll explain.'
He set them on the ground — all five immediately becoming curious about their surroundings, the puppies exploring with the specific focused energy of creatures encountering the world for the first time, The golden retriever sitting perfectly still and surveying the yard with round golden eyes, the elementail fox flowing along the ground in a quick circuit that covered the full yard in about eight seconds before returning to Arthur's feet.
Lyra came from the garden. Clara dropped off the fence. His mother set down the laundry and came closer. A whistle brought Thomas and Edric in from the field at an unhurried pace.
When everyone was assembled, Arthur looked at them.
'These are yours,' he said. 'One each. They're not just pets — I'll explain that part in a moment. But first, meet them and also name them.'
He pointed at the golden retriever. 'Dad.' He pointed at the black lab. 'Thomas.' He looked at Clara. 'Yours is the gold one.' He looked at Lyra. 'The fox.' He looked at his mother. 'The grey one.'
Five people looked at five small animals.
◆ ◆ ◆
The fox looked at Lyra.
Then she moved.
Not toward her — around her, in the quick flowing circuit she had used to survey the yard, but this time with Lyra as the center of it. She ran around Lyra's feet twice, spiraled up her leg, crossed her back between her shoulder blades, ran down her arm to her wrist and back, all of it so fast and so light that Lyra was still processing the first movement when the fourth had already happened. Lyra made a sound — not words, just the involuntary vocalization of someone experiencing something their body found ticklish and surprising in equal measure.
'She's —' Lyra tried to track the fox, who had gone from her wrist to her shoulder and was now investigating her hair. 'She's so fast —'
From the top of Lyra's head, she turned to look down at her with silver eyes.
Then, with the specific care of something that had found the position it intended to hold, she descended to Lyra's shoulder, stepped delicately from the shoulder to the curve of her neck, and arranged herself along it — long white body draped across Lyra's shoulders, small chin resting just below Lyra's ear, twin-tipped tail curling loosely across the front of her collarbone. She fit the space with uncanny precision, as though Lyra's shoulders had been built for exactly this.
Lyra went very still.
The small silver-white face turned toward her own. The eyes were bright and warm and paying very close attention.
Lyra reached up slowly and touched one finger to the top of herhead.
The fox pressed up into the touch and made a sound that was somewhere between a chirp and something that had no name in any language Arthur knew.
'Oh,' Lyra said softly. 'Hello, your name shall be Tsuki. Mm, yes Tsuki like the moon since your look like moonlight.'
◆ ◆ ◆
Clara's blonde cat sith had not moved.
She sat exactly where Arthur had set her down, in the middle of the yard, and she was looking at Clara with the complete focused attention of something that had decided Clara was the most interesting thing in the available environment and was going to look at her until further information arrived.
Clara was looking back.
The kitten was, objectively, one of the most appealing small creatures Arthur had ever produced. The golden coat caught the morning light perfectly. The round amber eyes were enormous relative to the small face. The proportions — slightly too large in the head, slightly too round in the body — were the specific proportions that had been making humans feel immediately protective toward young animals for as long as humans and young animals had coexisted.
Clara slid off the fence slowly, not taking her eyes off the kitten. She crossed the yard the way people crossed toward things they were afraid would disappear if they moved too quickly. She crouched down at a distance of about two feet and studied the kitten.
The cat sithstudied her back.
The staring contest continued for several seconds. Neither party showed any inclination to blink first.
'Does she...' Clara didn't finish the sentence.
'She likes you,' Arthur said. 'She just has a process.'
Clara extended her hand, palm up, the way you offered a hand to an animal you were uncertain of. 'Hmmm, I think I will name you Kiiro. Yes, that's a cute name for a cute kitten.' Kiiro listened attentively, and looked at the hand. She looked at Clara. She looked at the hand again.
Then she stood, walked the two feet between them with the unhurried dignity of something that had made its decision and saw no need to rush the implementation of it, and stepped onto Clara's palm. This act silently approving of the name Kiiro and of Clara herself.
She weighed almost nothing. Clara's hand came up slightly in surprise at how little she felt.
They looked at each other from close range — girl and kitten, face to face, the kitten's amber eyes and Clara's exactly the same color. Clara's expression went through several things: the absolute arrested delight of someone encountering something whose cuteness has exceeded their prepared response, then the slightly desperate quality of someone trying to contain that delight in front of her siblings, then the abandonment of the attempt.
'She's — ' Clara looked up at Arthur with an expression of mild accusation. 'You made her too cute. This is unreasonable.'
Kiiro took this moment to climb from Clara's palm to her shoulder with three precise steps, push through Clara's long blonde hair, and settle herself on Clara's shoulder with her chest proud and chin raised. From this position she surveyed the yard with an expression of complete proprietary satisfaction.
Then she licked Clara's neck once, tucked her nose under Clara's hair, and began to purr.
Clara's face did something that she was going to deny later.
'Okay,' Clara said. Her voice was not as steady as she intended it to be. 'Okay. She's mine.'
She stood, slowly, very aware of the small weight on her shoulder, and began walking in a slow circuit of the yard. Arthur could hear her talking quietly to Kiiro — a tour, he realized. She was giving Kiiro a tour of the yard. Explaining things.
Kiiro listened to all of it with her ears perfectly upright and her amber eyes tracking each thing Clara pointed to, with the attentive expression of a creature taking careful inventory of a new domain.
◆ ◆ ◆